Email is disappearing?

Is email disappearing? Yes, says Accenture’s Chief Technology Architect.

In twenty years from now, e-mail could be defunct. A combination of social networking and text messaging will replace electronic mails.

Twenty years from now… What’s the use of such a prediction in the fast-paced Internet development? (And the article does not mentioned what arguments there are to contend this.

I wonder if email will disappear in the near future, say in 5 years. Yes, email is morphing. Just take a look at your email practice and you will see that emailing is not the equivalent of a paper letter you sent in the past. Lots of young people mostly use messaging technology (MSN, Google Talk, etc) to communicate. I say “mostly” because messaging doesn’t substitute emailing fully. Gmail/Google Talk show that there is just a thin line between mailing en messaging. My prediction is that this is the future: we will have one email/messaging (web)client and will easily switch between them depending on what we intend.

What’s your opinion on the future of email?